a portfolio of blues
i am whale tongued open wide, sea scape missing a photograph of a time
before time. (with you) all my empty (craters to a filling). void feels a tooth,
tooth picks a tongue, i say mining gold in your mouth. found a trap-door
under your second tongue (liar liar/swear down/mother/home).
(yesterday, i said yes (the way a bumble-bee stings)). so pollen pollen pollen,
flower all over you (sneeze/tissue/hands (peony blues)). liquorice tea
steeped in the root of melancholy: drink, drunk, done. sweet i think
is a falsehood, bitter i think is (girlhood) laughter. tuft of soft, fleshy pink.
clouds a calling, maybe touch, maybe burning. glitter glues cackle dark, says
miss you like moonlight. call call foreigner, yes i am blue, yes i am brown.
shanty house i become, says denting out the roof of my car
(that be my mouth). why’d the car have to be white though? (dad says)
but it’s got the latest techno, so i drive around & smooth smooth.
but there’s me panicking at every looking, worried they’ll see
i’m some back-door garage trying to be. (about the cave i am turning into:
i’ll call you back). rock, rock, rocking, cradle fingers, nothing holding.
wooden heart, forest calling, in a turning (jammed)
at the door of a door: cherry pit, guava nova, feel loneliness as a predator,
makes reaching out a prey. prays for you like eye of a needle, threading skin
& then too much, pulls blood: curses. (didn’t mean to though…
didn’t meant to though). tea tree oil, aloe vera, what soothes the soul though?
rosewater, give-up. like to imagine a fist of feathers
blown to the wind of winds (sighs)… 3am winding clock in me, looking back
is tax on the heart. i am two-sevenths ship shilling (off key)
i walk out piano themed, a hand out: (interstellar), sensor lights (on/on/on…
intruder/intruder/intruder), wet grass, dew deen, love you, have been…
S. A. KHANUM is a writer from the UK.